DuPont Legacy Christmas

Day 1

Day 1: Wednesday, December 4, 2024
Join us this morning from the available departure location of your choice, meet your friendly on-board Trailways host, then settle in and get comfortable! Make your way to Dayton, Ohio today for our overnight stay. Enjoy rest and refresh breaks along the way today, as well as a stop for lunch, on your own, before arriving in Greenfield, Indiana for an included dinner at Cracker Barrel Old Country Store.
Afterwards, take delight in “A Carillon Christmas” where Carillon Historical Park’s 65-acre campus is transformed into a winter wonderland of sparkle, magic, and holiday cheer! The park features The Carillon Tree of Light which circles around a 200-foot-tall historic bell tower brightening the Dayton skyline. It also features Santa’s Toy Shop, Candy Cane Slopes, Letters to Santa, Deeds Carillon Christmas Concerts, Culp’s Christmas Café, Train Rides on the Midnight Express, Roundhouse Café in the Transportation Center, The Tailor of Gloucester Puppet Show, Carillon Card Co. in the 1930’s Print Shop, Model Train Displays, Museum Store Shopping, 15 miles of Christmas Lights, Morris and Hetzel Bakery, Gristmill Christmas Village and more!
Arrive at the hotel later tonight for your overnight stay. It’s been a very full day and you’ll be ready for your head to hit the pillow tonight and with having seen all the wondrous lights and Christmas displays you might find “visions of sugar plums dancing in your head” tonight!

Day 2

Day 2: Thursday, December 5, 2024
After breakfast at the hotel this morning we depart for the chocolate scented community of Hershey, Pennsylvania. We arrive and check in to Hershey Lodge with some time to freshen up before enjoying an included dinner at the Lodge this evening. Experience Hershey’s most festive seasonal event of the year, Hershey Park’s Christmas Candy Lane! Join us for more than 4 million lights, your favorite rides and coasters, a visit with Santa and so much more! Have time to explore Hershey Park on your own and return to the lodge via a shuttle service that runs every 30-40 minutes.

Day 3

Day 3: Friday, December 6, 2024
Enjoy breakfast at the hotel this morning before departing to visit Hershey’s Chocolate World. Learn the fascinating process of chocolate making on a simulated factory tour ride. Guests walk through a tropical jungle where cocoa beans are harvested, then they follow the cocoa bean’s journey to a boat dock where beans are loaded onto ships headed for America. From there, visitors climb aboard the tour ride and enter the simulated factory tour. Experience one of the largest chocolate candy shops ever where you can find your very own favorite ready to take home with you fresh from the factory.
After, embark on a Hershey Trolley Works tour of the town’s history and life story of Milton Hershey. Enjoy lunch, on your own, at the food hall while at Hershey’s Chocolate World before departing.
Now we set off for the wonderful Holidays at Nemours Estate in Wilmington. Beautiful throughout the year, Nemours Estate is breathtaking during the holiday season. The 77-room mansions, modeled after Marie Antoinette’s Le Petit Trianon, are dressed to the nines. Nemours is aglow with elaborate table settings, spectacular floral displays, and an array of beautiful Christmas trees, garlands, and wreaths. Many of the family’s original ornaments and decorations are evident including a German creche complete with soft ceramic, unglazed, and hand-colored figurines dating to the late 19th century.
We will have dinner at Buckley’s Tavern before checking into the Four Points by Sheraton Newark Christina Wilmington for the remainder of the evening. Buckley’s Tavern was originally built as a private home in 1817 but now offers casual American “comfort cuisine” in their tavern. There are two inside dining rooms as well as outdoor dining areas. Don’t forget to check out the totally renovated rooftop bar and grill.

Day 4

Day 4: Saturday, December 7, 2024
Enjoy breakfast at the hotel this morning before departing to celebrate the season by touring the beautiful historic houses of Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park. Home to a large collection of public art, including the Medici lions, also known as Florentine lions, installed in 1887. There are many historic homes in the park including Boelson Cottage, The Lilacs, Letitia Street House and many more!
After, we will depart for Macy’s to see the Christmas light shows and Dickens Christmas Village. Running since 1956, this nostalgic Philly holiday tradition offers daily free light shows, Dickens Village, animated windows and more. The light show has classic songs and stories illuminated with thousands of lights and backed by the sounds of the massive Wanamaker Organ, one of the largest and most famous pipe organs in the world. Macy’s visitors can also enjoy the store’s famous animated holiday windows or explore the by-reservation-only animatronic fun that is Dickens Village, an immersive retelling of the Dickens tale, A Christmas Carol.
This afternoon, experience Christmas Village in Philadelphia at the newly renovated LOVE Park of Center City, transformed into an authentic German Christkindlmarkt. Over 80 local and international vendors await the visitors in their traditional wooden booths, offering holiday gifts, ornaments, jewelry, high-quality arts and crafts. You are sure to find unique gifts for your loved ones that can’t be found in a shopping mall! Enjoy European foods, sweets, and drinks, such as Bratwurst, Schnitzel and Lebkuchen (gingerbread) or a cup of hot Gluehwein (mulled wine). Watch daily live performances by local bands, dance groups and artists on the Christmas Village stage. Don’t miss the festive Kaethe Wohlfahrt tent featuring popular Christmas gifts from Germany, including glass ornaments, music boxes, nutcrackers, Schwibbogen (a candle arch) and incense smokers. A Christmas village carousel and more vendors are extended to the City Hall Courtyard.
Later this evening, enjoy Philadelphia’s greatest moving experience of the Spirit of Philadelphia Jingle Bell Rock Dinner Cruise! With so much to offer including the great sights and sounds of Philadelphia’s Harbor and fantastic buffet dinner, it’s really no wonder why this cruise is one of the city’s top attractions.

Please Note: For the cruise, business casual to semi-formal attire is recommended. Business casual means no blue jeans. Dress slacks and a nice shirt is appropriate.

Day 5

ay 5: Sunday, December 8, 2024
After breakfast get ready to depart for the Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library in Winterthur, Delaware. Delight in the museum’s magnificent collection of American decorative arts as you tour the house and exhibition galleries. Enjoy the glorious 60-acre garden and surrounding woodlands and meadows, and play in the Enchanted Woods, an award-winning children’s garden. Dine in Winterthur’s cafes and shop the many options in the museum stores. After touring the house and gardens, we depart for Brandywine River Museum of Art.
Visit the beautiful campus which houses regional and American art, showcasing the works of Andrew Wyeth, a major American realist painter. A Brandywine Christmas offers visitors of all ages a spectacular holiday experience, with the region’s greatest model train display along with Christmas trees decorated for the season with critter ornaments made by talented volunteers. Make sure to check out the remarkable Brandywine Railroad 0-gauge model train display. It features trains running on nearly 2,000 feet of track and includes more than 1,000 pieces, including locomotives, passenger and freight trains, plus trolleys that pass through a small town, a farm, factories and even a carnival. Don’t forget to visit the N.C. Wyeth House & Studio before dinner.
Enjoy a wonderful dinner at Brandywine Prime Restaurant, a charming, upscale spot for traditional American cuisine such as steaks, crab cakes and scallops before returning to the hotel.

Day 6

Day 6: Monday, December 9, 2024
Depart after breakfast this morning for a visit to Hagley Museum and Library in Wilmington. Located on 235 acres along the banks of the Brandywine in Wilmington, Delaware, Hagley is the site of the gunpowder works founded by E.I. DuPont in 1802. It is here that the DuPont family first settled in America, built their first home, and began the black powder manufacturing business that became the foundation for all the other DuPont enterprises in the world.
Stop at the visitor center and worker’s hill, which shows where the mill workers lived and their children went to school in addition to the DuPont black powder yards, gardens, and the grounds of the first DuPont family home in America. Experience the 1803 DuPont ancestral home, Eleutherin Mills, decorated for the holidays.
This afternoon we are off for a High Tea Luncheon at the Hotel DuPont in Wilmington, Delaware. Hotel DuPont has been welcoming guests since 1913 to one of the grandest hotels in the world located in the heart of downtown Wilmington.
After tea and lunch we head to Longwood Gardens to be delighted by the holiday lights and festivities, including a sing-along to the sounds of the season played on Longwood’s organ. Celebrate the many shapes of the season, inspired by the contours of traditional holiday favorites like ribbons and colorful confectionery, and by the figures of nature from pinecones to snowflakes.
Outdoors, stroll among illuminated trees, glowing orbs, and a shimmering tunnel of lights. Take in a light display choreographed to music in the Main Fountain Garden and by a large lake. It’ll be a Longwood Christmas to remember!
Dinner this evening will be at the Big Fish Grill on the Riverfront before returning to the hotel for the remainder of the evening to do as you wish.

Day 7

Day 7: Tuesday, December 10, 2024
After breakfast at the hotel this morning, depart for Lancaster Pennsylvania. Arrive at Landis Valley Museum and enjoy a Belsnickel lunch and tour. Celebrate the many classic Christmas traditions handed down to us from the Pennsylvania Germans! Join us for holiday shopping, a wonderful meal, and a visit from the Belsnickel! A holiday luncheon is served to us in the Historic Landis Valley House Hotel.
We are in for a treat this afternoon with the production of DANIEL at the original Sight & Sound Theatre in Ronks. Witness one of the Bible’s most hope-filled stories as DANIEL comes to life in this brand-new original stage production from Sight & Sound Theatres. Taken from his people, Daniel is exiled far from home in the powerful kingdom of Babylon. Now this faithful servant must navigate his new life inside a palace filled with golden statues and shifting empires. As royal pressures mount, Daniel is faced with a dangerous choice.
You will soon see that Sight & Sound takes theatre to a whole new level with every show being an epic experience with a meaningful message and where edge-of-your-seat action meets heartfelt drama.
Hopefully you have worked up an appetite as we are headed to Hometown Kitchen for dinner. Here you will be filled with an Amish-style atmosphere with many Pennsylvania Dutch dishes to choose from. You can choose from their homemade chicken pot pie, roast beef and even an authentic Amish wedding meal. Don’t forget a fresh whoopie pie!
It’s time to head for the hotel and a great night of rest to be ready for another exciting holiday-filled day in the morning.

Day 8

Day 8: Wednesday, December 11, 2024
Enjoy breakfast at the hotel prior to checking out and heading for Wheeling, West Virginia. Arrive at Oglebay and check in to Wilson Lodge before enjoying an included lunch at the lodge this afternoon.
This afternoon we visit Oglebay Mansion Museum, the elegant estate of Cleveland industrialist Earl W. Oglebay, who purchased the mansion in 1900 to serve as a summer home. Upon his death in 1926, the millionaire willed his spectacular country estate to the City of Wheeling. Highlights of your visit include exploring 13 period rooms focusing on Wheeling’s earliest settlement through the opulent Edwardian era, plus the Wymer General Store and Sinclair Pharmacy collections. Discover impressive collections of American furniture, china, silver, glass, pewter, toys, and textiles.
After, return to the Lodge for dinner with time to freshen up first. Later this evening, enjoy a guided tour of Oglebay Winter Festival of Lights, identified as one of the best Christmas displays in the United States by many travel companies and national publications, with over six miles of lighting amidst 300 dazzling acres.

Day 9

Day 9: Thursday, December 12, 2024
After breakfast we depart for the Drury Inn Plaza in Indianapolis, IN. We will drive by the Lights at Monument Circle. Each year the Soldiers & Sailors Monument is decorated like a Christmas tree to celebrate the holiday season with long strings of sparkling colors encircling it.
We then arrive at Beef and Boards Dinner Theatre to enjoy a wonderful dinner buffet and to see the musical – A Christmas Story.

Day 10

Day 10: Friday, December 13, 2024
Enjoy breakfast this morning at the hotel prior to checking out and embracing your holiday spirit as we arrive at the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana History Center to experience the Festival of Trees! Indulge in the joy of the holiday season with several dozen elaborate trees packed into the grand building, creating a winter wonderland to delight people of all ages. There have been upside-down trees, trees made from unconventional materials like balloons, tires, books, and more. You can vote for your favorites, but we are sure it will be a tough decision.
We then arrive in Carmel, Indiana in time to have lunch, on your own, with time to shop at the Carmel Christkindlmarkt. The Carmel Christkindlmarkt is where the charm of long-standing European tradition comes to the heart of the city. One of the earliest of these markets was the 16th century Christkindlmarkt in Nuremberg, Germany and the wonderful tradition now has spread worldwide. You will have one last chance to get one-of-a-kind, high quality, handmade gifts, German inspired food, drink and ice skating before returning home later today.